| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: things in the back of the brain. He wore no shoes, but, instead,
a sort of half moccasin, pointed, though, like the shoes they
wore in the fourteenth century, and with the little ends curling
up. They were a darkish brown and his toes seemed to fill them to
the end.... They were unutterably terrible....
He must have said something, or looked something, for Axia's
voice came out of the void with a strange goodness.
"Well, look at Amory! Poor old Amory's sickold head going
'round?"
"Look at that man!" cried Amory, pointing toward the corner
divan.
This Side of Paradise |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: nausea overwhelmed him. He did not understand.
All he knew was that he could not eat the flesh of this
black man, and thus hereditary instinct, ages old, usurped the
functions of his untaught mind and saved him from transgressing
a worldwide law of whose very existence he was ignorant.
Quickly he lowered Kulonga's body to the ground, removed
the noose, and took to the trees again.
Chapter 10
The Fear-Phantom
From a lofty perch Tarzan viewed the village of thatched
huts across the intervening plantation.
Tarzan of the Apes |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle: broken and blocked with wooden boards, while the roof was partly
caved in, a picture of ruin. The central portion was in little
better repair, but the right-hand block was comparatively modern,
and the blinds in the windows, with the blue smoke curling up
from the chimneys, showed that this was where the family resided.
Some scaffolding had been erected against the end wall, and the
stone-work had been broken into, but there were no signs of any
workmen at the moment of our visit. Holmes walked slowly up and
down the ill-trimmed lawn and examined with deep attention the
outsides of the windows.
"This, I take it, belongs to the room in which you used to sleep,
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: address a fellow-man, full of his own tempers; and to tell
truth, rightly understood, is not to state the true facts, but
to convey a true impression; truth in spirit, not truth to
letter, is the true veracity. To reconcile averted friends a
Jesuitical discretion is often needful, not so much to gain a
kind hearing as to communicate sober truth. Women have an ill
name in this connection; yet they live in as true relations;
the lie of a good woman is the true index of her heart.
"It takes," says Thoreau, in the noblest and most useful
passage I remember to have read in any modern author, (1) "two
to speak truth - one to speak and another to hear." He must
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